[Matticus_Rex]

> Then why this singular focus on ketamine and psychedelics all the sudden? If it has many different causes why focus on activating a single serotonin receptor?

Because it does work really well for a lot of people for whom other things don't work really well. Why would that be controversial?

[FollowingTheDao]

No, in fact it does not "work well for a lot of people" as the study found. I am not making it controversial, you are, by denying what they found in the paper.

What you are really hearing is the massive marketing that is flooding the airwaves so some corporations can make a profit off of sick people and when it does not work they can say "Oh well" and walk away with the money and all you get is rebound depression.

[Matticus_Rex]

Erm... you realize this isn't the first study on ketamine, right?

This is one study, that has not yet been peer-reviewed, that explicitly acknowledged the study design could be subject to significant subject-expectancy bias, using one particular treatment regimen, with a treatment group of ~20 people. At most, this study tells us that we have more to learn about what's going on and why we see significant effects. Both groups did see significant effects relative to base rates that are unlikely to be random even at that small sample size! Funny how you've come to radically different conclusions on the findings than the scientists themselves.

I am actually only vaguely aware of the marketing around this -- I've been following this space for about a decade and have read quite a few studies around it. Even if this study is generalizable and ketamine is no more effective at treating depression than the idea that ketamine will have an effect in treating the depression (placebo), we know from the evidence that it's having a significant effect relative to simple regression to the mean (depressed people simply getting less depressed without treatment). If it's a placebo, it's a powerful placebo, and placebo effects that are effective aren't a bad thing.